Making Victoria’s euthanasia laws: a process to be shunned

Regrettably, in Victoria, for many MPs, responsibility was overborne by politics. The drive to implement the Parliamentary Committee’s recommendation on “voluntary assisted dying” came from a Premier seeking to reposition his party on the political spectrum and to revive his waning popularity, who then used every leverage at his disposal to induce and coerce his party’s MPs to vote for the bill despite party rules allowing a free vote. Only a brave few government MPs felt able to resist.

If ever anyone wanted an example of how not to legislate on a complex and profound issue like this, Victoria has provided it. It has been a process more befitting a two-bit banana republic than what purports to be a mature Westminster democracy.